Iain Rabbitts: Improving our municipal water supplies is taking too long 30 Nov, 2018 5:00am 4 minutes to read
There is no change in the risk to public health around the country.
There may be a few suppliers on the edge of compliance whose status will improve, but it is unlikely any improvement in testing will make a real difference to the level of public health risk from drinking water.
A white paper published on Tuesday signals significant change is coming.
Within the industry there is much support for reform.
As David Cull, president of Local Government NZ and mayor of Dunedin, said, "We accept change is needed – our 20th century service delivery model cannot cope with current and future population and land use pressures."
I doubt any organisation or water professional would disagree, or with the proposal for an independent regulator — one with broad powers to ensure both compliance with the drinking water standards and the accountability of decision makers.
I believe there is also general agreement that the capability and capacity of water suppliers across the country needs to be improved, and that funding for infrastructure needs to be significantly increased.
Given all this agreement, why is there so much angst over water reform?
We must have all opinions out in the open and have an adult discussion about what is the best way to ensure that all New Zealanders have access to safe drinking water.

It originated from a water treatment plant and got dumped into a local site in the 1960s for almost a decade.
Now, the City of Fort Myers has begun to remove this residential health hazard.
However, the highly-anticipated removal of contaminated sludge from an area in Dunbar fell flat Thursday.
Work started on the site early this morning but then stopped with very little activity the rest of the day.
“But I’m glad they [are] finally getting it out.” Residents like Freeman, who live near this sludge site are saying good riddance to the public nuisance.
“Well, I’m glad they’re moving it,” Freeman said.
“This has been a long time coming,” Streets said.
But, that excitement came to a halt when the activity slowed to a stop.
The trucks being loaded with the sludge are supposed to be driven from South Street to I-75 then all the way up to the out-of-state facility.
WINK News has not received a response from the city regarding the projects scheduled timeline for completion.

A Casper resident in Centennial Hills was concerned when a private test of her home’s water came back positive for total coliform — but city officials say there is no reason to be alarmed.
City crews immediately responded to the citizen’s complaint and took samples from the house and the surrounding area, according to Public Services Director Andrew Beamer.
The trouble with coliform is that it sometimes indicates the presence of harmful fecal matter, but none of the samples tested positive for fecal bacteria, he said.
“We firmly believe that the drinking water that we are providing is safe to consume,” he said.
Though no problems were initially found, Beamer said Thursday morning that the city had sent additional samples to an independent lab to double-check.
“We want everyone to feel good about the water, so we switched to a different pressure zone and flushed the hydrants (in the area),” she said.
Wednesday night on Facebook, a woman posted a message she said was copied from an unnamed resident of Boots Drive in Centennial Hills, a neighborhood east of Wyoming Boulevard.
"We alerted the city, who after independent testing, has corroborated the results of our home test.
It is our understanding that the integrity of the line in our neighborhood has been compromised, and is thus contaminated.
If you or your family have had vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramping, etc.

Analysis based on testing mostly conducted by energy companies shows that water near all but two coal plants in Illinois is contaminated with toxic waste.
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency said 10 of the sites pose a danger to drinking water supplies of nearby communities.
The Waukegan plant, formerly owned by Commonwealth Edison (ComEd), has two unlined coal ash ponds onsite, along with an unlicensed landfill.
“We need stronger rules that provide permanent protection with a financial guarantee, and give the public a voice in these decisions.” Analysis of Industry-Supplied Data Nonprofit groups who produced the report based on industry-supplied data from 24 coal plants include the Environmental Integrity Project and the Sierra Club.
The groups are asking J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat and the state’s governor-elect, to require coal plant owners to set aside money to clean up their coal ash pits.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) earlier this year revised its rule on coal ash disposal.
The changes also gave utilities more time to clean up ash ponds, until October 2020, instead of the original April 2019 date.
In October, the Hoosier Environmental Council in Indiana, along with five other groups, filed suit in an effort to force the Trump administration to uphold the rules ordering utilities to clean up ash ponds by April 2019.
Many Illinois coal plants have disposed of coal ash in a process where it is mixed with water and then pumped into unlined pits.
The EPA in its technical studies to develop the CCR rule found that closure-in-place or closure-by-removal of coal ash were the best options to protect human health and the environment.

A section of residents of Woraiyur in Tiruchi city has complained of getting drinking water mixed with sewage for the last five days.
He then alerted his neighbours and residents of other nearby areas.
The water supplied to the residents was full of sewage.
It was black and unfit for human consumption, said a resident, who displayed bottles filled with the contaminated water.
“It was detected five days ago.
But we do not know how long we have beendrinking the contaminated water.
We have now stopped consuming it,” a resident said.
Acting on a complaint, a team of workers engaged by Tiruchi Corporation on Monday began the task of detecting the point of sewage mixing with drinking water on Monday.
They continued the work on Tuesday too.
But they were unable to detect the sewage mixing point.

Toxic waste contaminates water sources near all but two of the coal-fired power plants in Illinois, according to a new analysis based largely on testing conducted by energy companies.
The compilation of industry-supplied reports from 24 coal plants highlights how federal and state officials have failed for decades to hold corporations accountable for the millions of tons of ash and other harmful byproducts created by the burning of coal to generate electricity.
Most of the waste in Illinois has been mixed with water and pumped into unlined pits, where testing shows harmful levels of arsenic, chromium, lead and other heavy metals are steadily oozing through the ground toward lakes and rivers, including the state’s only national scenic river.
Another is a Joliet quarry where ComEd and other companies dumped coal ash until NRG overhauled a nearby coal plant in 2016 to burn natural gas.
Ten of the sites pose a danger to the drinking water supplies of nearby communities, according to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, including the Joliet dump and ash pits surrounding another NRG coal plant along the Des Plaines River in Romeoville.
Nonprofit groups behind the new report, including the Environmental Integrity Project and the Sierra Club, are urging Democrat J.B. Pritzker, the state’s next governor, to require coal-plant owners to stop polluting the state’s protected waters and to set aside money to clean up their pits of hazardous coal ash.
In August, a key federal appeals court handed down a scathing ruling that regulations adopted during the Obama administration weren’t tough enough and did nothing to prevent leaks at scores of ash pits near shuttered coal plants.
But the Trump administration is pushing to replace the Obama-era regulations with an even weaker set of requirements.
Most of the coal plants in Illinois are owned by two companies, New Jersey-based NRG and Houston-based Vistra Energy.
Vistra-owned sites include unlined pits in the floodplain of the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River, the state’s only national scenic river.

The Philomath Public Works Department reported a loss of water pressure in the city’s distribution system due to a break in the water line.
City sources said residents will be informed when tests show no bacteria and the boiling of water is no longer needed.
Officials anticipate resolving the problem by the end of Thursday.
Bacteria that could possibly be present in the water supply can make people sick and are a particular concern for people with weakened immune systems, including infants and young children.
• Bring all water to a boil, let it boil for one full minute, and let it cool before using, or use bottled water.
• Boiled or bottled water should be used for drinking, making ice, brushing teeth, washing dishes, and food preparation until further notice.
Boiling kills bacteria and other organisms in the water.
A release from the city states that potentially harmful bacteria include fecal coliforms and E. coli which are bacteria whose presence indicates that the water may be contaminated with human or animal wastes, the city reported.
Microbes in these wastes can cause diarrhea, cramps, nausea, headaches or other symptoms.
People at increased risk should seek advice about drinking water from their health-care providers.

Lanxess said it does not believe the filmmakers will provide an “objective review of the situation” or of the company’s efforts to remediate the chemical contamination, which has been linked to years of Agent Orange and DDT production at the plant.
ELMIRA — A pair of documentaries exploring the contamination of Elmira’s water supply are in limbo after the new owner of the chemical plant at the heart of the story refused to give final approval for the inclusion of an interview with a former plant employee.
The interview with Jeff Merriman, manager of environmental remediation for former owner Chemtura Corp., was filmed before the company was sold in 2017, and new owner Lanxess does not want that footage to be used.
"We need final written approval, and Lanxess doesn’t want to give written approval," said Kitchener resident Mike Heitmann, one of two local filmmakers looking to tell the story of the contamination.
The two started working together more than three years ago to make a documentary about the contamination, but they disagreed on what the scope of the film should be and decided to produce two separate films using many of the same interviews.
In an email statement to the Record, Lanxess said it does not believe the filmmakers will provide an "objective review of the situation" or of the company’s efforts to remediate the chemical contamination, which has been linked to years of Agent Orange and DDT production at the plant.
"Without written approval, footage shot on Chemtura property may not be used," the agreement stated.
Heitmann and Wagler also had Merriman sign a separate release form acknowledging the recordings would be included in the final film and become the property of the filmmakers.
A carcinogenic chemical known as nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) was found in town wells, and a pipeline was built to bring water from Waterloo to Elmira.
Cleanup is expected to continue until at least 2028, the provincially mandated deadline for groundwater remediation to be complete.

Disinfection of public drinking water is one of the great public health success stories of the 20th century.
In 1908, Jersey City, N.J., became the first U.S. city to routinely disinfect community water.
Other cities and towns quickly followed, and by 1920, the typhoid rate in the United States had dropped by 66 percent.
But that battle isn’t over.
Around the world, more than 2 billion people lack reliable access to safe water (SN: 8/18/18, p. 14), and half a million people die each year from diarrhea caused by contaminated water, according to the World Health Organization.
If big cities are struggling, small towns with skimpy budgets as well as the many people who get their water from private wells often have it harder, lacking access to the infrastructure or technology to make water reliably safe.
In this issue, Science News staff writer Laurel Hamers digs into the latest research on water treatment technology and finds a focus on efforts to invent affordable, scalable solutions.
There’s a lot of engineering and chemistry involved, not surprisingly, and also physics — it’s hard to move water efficiently through a filter while also catching the bad stuff.
Her story is a testament to researcher ingenuity, and a helpful primer on how a typical municipal water treatment plant works.
Plus I found data on potential contaminants such as Giardia and Cryptosporidium, as well as information on how residents can get their water tested for lead, which can leach from pipes or fixtures.

Amritsar
The water harvesting project in Kot Dharam Chand Kalan village of the district has resulted in water contamination for the villagers.
It has made the underground water unfit not only for consumption but also for washing clothes.
At that time, the officials concerned had stated that the project would do away with the problem of waterlogging in streets as waste water would be drained into the catchment area.
As many as 500 families were connected with the project.
The water collected in here was to be used for irrigation or other purposes.
With the passage of time, the stored water made the underground water contaminated.
It has made underground water contaminated.
Residents said the problem has forced them to bring water from a nearby gurdwara.
People said they have been demanding potable water facility.